Quantum Hardware, Photonic Computing

ASML explores photonics with Xanadu quantum collaboration

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September 9, 2026 by Ivy Delaney

Xanadu, a quantum computing company traded on the NASDAQ and Toronto Stock Exchange (XNDU), is collaborating with semiconductor equipment provider ASML to address optical loss in its processors, a key challenge to building practical quantum computers. Specifically, the companies will explore how improvements in lithography can reduce line edge roughness, a factor impacting performance. “Fault tolerance and error correction are arguably the most important technical objectives for the quantum computing industry,” says Dr. Christian Weedbrook, Founder and CEO of Xanadu, explaining the drive to refine manufacturing processes for photonic quantum hardware.

Xanadu and ASML Target Optical Loss Reduction via Lithography

ASML will contribute its expertise in advanced lithography processes to Xanadu’s efforts to minimize optical loss within its quantum processors. This collaboration directly addresses a key hurdle in scaling photonic quantum computing. Line edge roughness, a factor impacted by lithography, is a primary focus for reducing these losses and improving the performance of Xanadu’s hardware. The companies intend to explore how refined patterning control can create lower-loss photonic structures, a critical step toward building practical quantum computers.

This partnership extends beyond basic research, reflecting Xanadu’s commitment to translating quantum innovation into tangible hardware improvements; Dr, the company says. Stan Baron, Senior Vice President and Head of Customer Team EU-US at ASML, stated that this collaboration is an opportunity to explore advanced lithography processes with Xanadu and better understand how ASML’s technology and expertise can support photonics applications.

ASML also expressed its pleasure in contributing to the exploration of future manufacturing approaches for photonic quantum hardware as the technology matures, signaling a long-term commitment to supporting Xanadu’s mission to build accessible and useful quantum computers.

Fault tolerance and error correction are arguably the most important technical objectives for the quantum computing industry.

Dr. Christian Weedbrook, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Xanadu
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Ivy Delaney

Ivy Delaney has been working with neural networks and machine learning since the mid-nineties, back when a couple of hidden layers and a long afternoon of training counted as ambitious. She has watched the field go from academic curiosity to the thing quietly running underneath everything, and she brings that long view to quantum computing. For Quantum Zeitgeist she covers the ground where the two fields meet. That means quantum machine learning and the variational algorithms it leans on, and it also means the less glamorous but more interesting story of classical machine learning already doing real work inside quantum machines, decoding error-correcting codes, calibrating noisy hardware and learning the error models that simulators depend on. She writes about the hardware those algorithms have to run on too, and about the post-quantum cryptography scramble that the same hardware has set off. Her stories typically start with the paper, whether that is peer-reviewed work, conference proceedings or an arXiv preprint, with the source linked so you can hold a claim up against the research it came from. She is unimpressed by benchmarks that will not say what they beat, and by demonstrations that only work in the press release.

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